“Okay class; open The Catcher in the Rye to page one, and we’ll begin reading.”

Chanyeol sleepily grabs the novel from the basket underneath his desk, and opens the book not to page one, but to the very last page, as it’s ultimately very important to read the last lines of a book before beginning it.

Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.

“If you really want to hear about it….” the teacher begins, and, where normally Chanyeol’s attention drops drastically whenever a teacher reads aloud, he finds himself attentively reading along, slightly interested in the hype of such a teen phenomena, or whatever.

As his teacher drones on, Chanyeol reads ahead at an alarmingly quicker rate than the speaking voice, and finishes the first chapter before the teacher is halfway through. Instead of continuing to read ahead, Chanyeol decides to analyze his peers, watching Baekhyun’s face contour in elements of confusion, and Jongdae reflect a similar countenance.

Chanyeol loses track of time watching his friend’s expressions to the novel; he shutters out of his stupor when he hears his teacher shut his book closed and state, “Now that we’ve read the first chapter together, I want you to keep a journal for this novel. In this journal, I will be giving you critical thinking questions to answer, and you’ll add vocabulary you don’t know and colloquialisms you notice throughout the piece. Understand?”

Chanyeol takes out a piece of paper, dates it (it is a journal after all; isn’t it essential to date it?), and writes:

Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.

He may be twenty-five chapters from this quote, but somehow he still sees this as being the most important.

The teacher tells the students to read until the end of class, and to make sure that they are maintaining their journals, because yes, it is a grade.

Thirty-seven minutes later, when he hears the bell ring, he gathers his stuff, and walks out of the literature classroom alongside his friends, wearing a wide grin.

-

Literature is the only class Chanyeol has with both Baekhyun and Jongdae.

He has chemistry and math with Baekhyun, band with Jongdae, and he’s by himself in history, drama, and English - as both Baekhyun and Jongdae decided to take Mandarin, conveniently without telling Chanyeol about this plan.

Chanyeol of course has other friends; he’s not only limited to Baekhyun and Jongdae. He finds it phony and self-righteous to judge one’s own popularity, but from the way others treat him and address him, he assumes he’s well known as the happy-go-lucky, always smiling and laughing, musically inclined guy. There’s nothing wrong with that, he supposes.

Except that, somehow, people think he’s narcissistic for assuming that. Or maybe, he thinks he’s narcissistic.

Except, that what do friends mean? What are relationships, when the only thing a person knows about you is that you play guitar, you laugh a lot, and you’re never sad? And that’s not just his fellow classmates, that’s debatably his best friends.

They’re sitting at the lunch table taking in the underclassmen (however did they get first lunch with freshmen and sophomores?) when conversation pops up.

“So, what do you guys think about the book we’re reading in lit?” Baekhyun asks the group, and as he finishes, their hyungs, Joonmyun and Minseok, sit down at the lunch table.

“What are you guys reading now?” Minseok questions.

“Catcher in the Rye.”

“Ahh,” Joonmyun adds, “I remember reading that book. It’s quite good, perceptive really. I never really connected with Holden, but I could see where others would.”

“But that’s just it!” Baekhyun blurts out, “I don’t see myself connecting with this guy!”

“Baek,” Chanyeol reminds him, “We’ve only read one chapter aloud, and you were supposed to read a bit by yourself. I don’t know if that’s enough text for you to know that already.”

“Are you implying that you relate to Holden? You, Chanyeol?” Jongdae laughingly asks him.

“No, I’m not saying that.” Yes.

“Well then, why would you defend a book character, man?”

“Dude, I never defended a ing character. I’m just telling you that it’s a little early to be choosing sides.” And you’re inadvertently degrading mine.

“Don’t get so offended man! Since when have you enjoyed lit class?”

“I don’t.” I don’t; I enjoy expressing myself more than the class itself.

“Guys, guys,” Joonmyun laughs, “Loosen up on the questions. Chanyeol apparently has no sympathy for the book, okay? Besides who cares? It’s just a book, right Chanyeol?”

Chanyeol face splits into a grin, and he nods hurriedly. “Of course.” … It’s not.

-

It’s not that Chanyeol doesn’t do well in school; he’s actually rather intelligent. The saddest aspect about school is that everyone underestimates quite how intelligent he really is, assuming that the facade he wears on a day to day basis is the true reflection of his personality. He may act goofy, and unaware, and way too smiley, but those characteristics don’t explain his exceptional transcript and great grade point average.

No, it’s not that he isn’t a brilliant student; in all honestly, and he would never admit this, Chanyeol actually enjoys school. Where some find school all too similar to a prison, Chanyeol finds it as an escape, as beneficial to his psyche.

He wants to be surrounded by others; school allows that.

He wants to practice his acting in the form of his pretense; school allows that.

He needs to slip away from the reality of his life; school allows that.

School is made awful ironically by the people who help make it great, his friends. It’s moments, like at lunch, that make Chanyeol cringe.

His friends play along with his silly persona; the three of them together are often called “The Beagle Line” because they’re all so loud and reactive around each other. He’s not sure where the name originated, but it’s stuck with them since freshmen year.

And, it’s not that Chanyeol is not funny, and loud, and reactive, and smiley, and what else. He really is, but that’s not all he is. He’s deep, and introspective, and observant, when he wants to be. And sometimes, he really wants to be, but his friends don’t agree.

Those times just so happen to start appearing more often, in particular in their literature class.

“Okay class, what chapter did most of you finish yesterday? And please don’t tell me only chapter one because we read that together.”

Chanyeol hears around him a few choruses of, “Chapter three!” and though he read through chapter four, he finds that it’s not a big deal to reread the last chapter.

“Okay, we’ll start with chapter four, and then we’ll have a class discussion about various aspects about Holden. Open your books to page twenty-six, and I’ll begin.”

Satisfied with the fumbling of pages, the teacher reads, I didn’t have…”

Chanyeol is halfway listening, more actively watching his classmates; because, just as yesterday, it’s much more fun to watch his friends’ reactions to the novel than to listen to words he’s already read.

“I never saw him use one, anyway,” the teacher finishes, then asks the students to take out their journals from yesterday.

“I will forgive you if you didn’t write much yesterday, but it’s crucial that you document your thoughts when reading this novel. First, I want you to describe Holden’s image of and relationship with Ackley and Stradlater. What does he think of them; is he friends with either of them? Once you’ve finished that, look up and we’ll start our class discussion.”

Chanyeol wouldn’t consider himself a genius at really anything (despite the somehow popular belief that he’s full of himself or whatever), but he is fairly confident in his analysis of certain pieces of literature, this one included. It’s not that there’s some wild connection between him and Holden, but there is just something about his narration that draws him in. That makes him want to read, to listen - as if Holden’s looking for someone to listen to him, and Chanyeol’s that someone. Chanyeol gets that, he really does. Is it too much to ask for someone to really listen to what you want to say?

A couple minutes later, when everyone has finished his or her’s journal entries, his teacher asks, “So class, why do you think Jane Gallagher keeps all her kings on the back row?”

A lot of the class chuckles, and Chanyeol inwardly groans, already knowing how this period will go. “What type of question is that, teach?” One of the guys in the front, with some name he doesn’t care to remember, asks.

“Do I need to repeat myself? Just think a little deeper guys; you can do this.”

After a few seconds, his fellow classmates begin to throw out the most random reasons and responses, and if Chanyeol was inwardly groaning before, he’s vocal about it now. That earn him a strange look from the other two-thirds of the Beagle Line, but that’s neither here nor there.

Finally, the students move into a near silence; that is until a quiet student, who Chanyeol swears hasn’t been in the class all year, says something. “Maybe she’s keeping her kings on the back row as a way of hiding her assets. Holden talks about Stradlater as y, and maybe he mentions her kings because he doesn’t think she’d give away her precious assets to someone like Stradlater. And maybe, those precious assets are simply her innocence and...”

Though the class was already near silent from lack of ideas, it certainly was dead silent after whoever it was said his insightful monologue. The teacher looks just as surprised as his students, but with all due respect, Chanyeol thinks he’s surprised because the student, who Chanyeol didn’t even know existed, said a word in the class. If the boy has been here all year, Chanyeol has obviously never heard him speak, and he’s assuming neither has his teacher.

“Ah, yes, that was analytical. Have you read the book before?” The teacher subconsciously narrows his eyes, and Chanyeol wonders why on Earth any teacher would be upset that a student could produce such a well thought out answer.

“No sir. First time.” The boy quietly answers.

“Very well. Students, I want you to turn to your neighbors and discuss whether you find Holden to be a reliable narrator. We would begin the next chapter, but seeing as there’s not enough time today, simply answer the last question with your friends, write down your response in your journals, and be prepared to leave. Good work everybody!”

Baekhyun, to his left, and Jongdae to the left of him, both turn to look at Chanyeol. Baekhyun is the first to speak with, “Yeah, I’m not going to do that. Chanyeol, did you finish your math homework? I forgot to do it last night.”

“Couldn’t we at least attempt-”

“No. I’m sure teach won’t really care. What are you doing right now, Jongdae?” Baekhyun turns to look at the other boy, and Chanyeol sighs and gets his math homework. While Baekhyun is still chatting with Jongdae, Chanyeol looks over at the mystery boy on the other side of the room and wonders who he is, and if he’s the cheesy light in the darkness of the class.

-

As he’s now in his junior year, Chanyeol has stopped remembering his days thoroughly, and he only makes special note of something at school if something exciting, traumatic, or funny happened. Anything else doesn’t pique his interest.

The rest of the day, as usual, followed in a blur. Chemistry with Baek was uneventful; no one managed to blow something up, catch something on fire, or create some sort of chemical imbalance that would kill them all. Therefore, incredibly unnoteworthy.

Math was math. There’s nothing more to say.

Band is always fun and a way to relieve his pent up anger or stress from the day (particularly his literature class, these days), but his band director wasn’t there, so he sleep for fifty-five minutes.

He can’t even remember going to the rest of his classes, allowing for them all to muddle into a collection of boring and uninteresting.

As much as he hates to admit it, since yesterday, he has started looking forward to literature class. Sure, he has to deal with his entire class’s insensitivity and ignorance to all of literature it appears, but there is at least one other being in the entire classroom who seems to understand the book as much as he does. It’s comforting, in an unspoken way, honestly.

“Okay, class; we’re going to be reading chapter five today. Please be aware of Holden’s change in mental state; does he grow more emotionally secure or unstable throughout the chapter? Make sure to record your thoughts in your journals.”

Once everyone is settled, the teacher reads, “We always had….”

Chanyeol, for once, decides he’ll read along with the class, so he doesn’t have to watch his stupid friends’ faces today. He already has to hear their stupid responses; he doesn’t need to see their stupid reactions.

Chanyeol is amazed by Holden’s ability to switch topics so easily and smoothly, and jots down in his journal, “stream of consciousness narrator” and continues to read along with the class.

The teacher reads, “My brother Allie….” and Chanyeol attention kindles to an even higher state, that is until he reads, “He’s dead now.” Chanyeol slowly shuts his book and looks around the room.

He raises his hand to excuse himself from the room, but his teacher continues reading aloud. “I was only thirteen, and they were going to have me psychoanalyzed….” By this point, Chanyeol is nervously bouncing in his seat, heart racing and mind clouding. He wasn’t ready for that; he wasn’t expecting that.

He coughs to grab his teacher’s attention, and all the he receives is Jongdae’s wondering eyes, except they’re probably not concerned, just curious as to why Chanyeol was raising his hand.

Finally, the teacher finishes the last sentence of the chapter, and looks up to see Chanyeol’s hand raised. “What is it, Chanyeol?”

“Ca- Can I go to the restroom?”

“Right now?” His teacher sighs. “We were just about to begin discussion, and you really don’t need to miss that.”

“It’s an emergency, sir.” Chanyeol replies expressionlessly.

“You can wait a few more minutes until we finish.”

Chanyeol deadpans. “Except that I can’t, sir.” With that, Chanyeol shoves his literature folder into his bag and strides to the door, taking extra caution to slam it on his way out.

Now that he’s free of the environment conducive to anxiety, he dashes to the restroom to throw some water on his face, in hopes that it will alleviate some of the unease he feels in his chest.

He doesn’t hear anyone enter the restroom until he sees a shadow of a person in the mirror.

“Hello? Who’s there?” Chanyeol inwardly cringes that his voice wavered.

The intelligent boy from his literature class slowly walks out of the shadows and reveals his young, attractive, tanned face to Chanyeol. Recognition and confusion passes over Chanyeol’s face, and the other boy says, “Hello, I’m Jongin.”